metadigital

Yes. intelligence is an evolutionairy cul-de-sac in the highway of survival. The armoured arthropods had it right. Brute force of numbers and a quick breeding cycle beats intelligence hands down. (A business analogy: cheap components bring the "bottom line" down and make for a more efficient and rapid manufacturing process. Quality is bogus.)

Ah, but some of them knew they were evil, didn't they? That's gotta count for something. I guess if philosophers can't agree on what is evil (absolute or relative) then we're going to struggle. Question: What alignment is Harry Callaghan (from the Dirty Harry novels and the quintology)? Someone on the NwN Hall of Fame suggested Lawful Evil, but I don't think this is true. I think he's more Chaotic Neutral with Good tendencies; after all, he is trying to make the world a better place (Good) any way it needs to be done (Chaotic), even if it takes an evil act (Neutral).

Should be -2 no ? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> for each child: -2 INT, and +1 WIS (to a maximum of +1).

I just hope it's not the most obvious. I was kinda hoping he'd been killed. (Finally, for the twentieth time.) I remember reading Russell T Davies saying that one of his pet peeves with the last few series is that the Daleks ended up as henchmen , which just reduced their stature to Rent-a-crowd Monsters, Inc. So I wasn't expecting his re-appearance. (I still hope he doesn't ... but RTD seems to enjoy his deus ex machina endings ... ) I like the overall narrative arc that runs across the entire series: very nice. (I was initially skeptical of the single and double episode format, but the wide leit-motif link has invalidated that worry, nicely.) And I do like the half-a-million Daleks ... (w00t) And don't think we're far away from that sort of BB. It would take the Cult of Popularity smack-bang up-to-date and in-line with the Aztec culture it harks from. (The Aztecs would take young late-teenage boys and girls -- virgins -- and they would be feted for a year, living like royalty, literally, before their ceremonial (and very real) sacrifice. For the good of the society.) People make fun of the Roman colleseum, but its job was re-inforcing law and order: those participants were criminals serving out their punishment -- not volunteers. That's our modern sickness, this cult of popularity (people famous for being famous, like that ditz Hilton).

Oh, Wow! Now I remember Wing Commander. That was a cool game. Boy, that takes me back ... :cool:

I have to say that the episode just completed (the first of the two-parter with the Daleks) was brilliant. The writing is sharp, the characters interesting and the plot really gripping. (Maybe I'm biased, but there you go.) And thee are over 200 ships of 2000 Daleks about to invade the Earth .... and who was that voice ...?

Yep, I'm currently deep within a Nutella phase. (Actually, Green & Black's organic nutella-type spread.) :D

Peanut butter and jelly sandwichs are good, if you add plain ready-salted crisps, as well. :cool: It is weird the way the same product in a different country is made differently and tastes complpetely, incomplehensibly different. I have noticed this with products as diverse as Cadbury-Schweppes bitter lemon and Kellogg's Just Right breakfast cereal.

"Boots of Many Moods" ? "Boots of Women's Intuition" ? :ph34r: "Boots of Endlessly Dancing Feet"

Either your derangement or your deliberate misapprehension is difficult to contain, or both, but I shall soldier on. :D Not at all. As I keep maintaining -- and you keep ignoring -- I am defending the status quo and you are heralding some neo-puritanical regime. I am quite happy with the society, I just don't want extremists like you to start eroding my rights according to your own sensibilities. No, this thread is about what is appropriate content for video games. I want there to be a limit based on relevance to story; you want there to be arbitrary limits based on your moral code. If they are banned from popular media, then they are beyond public discussion. After video games, then film, and books, as well. Why can't you argue about the topic, instead of painting me as someone with a fetish for violence? Actually, I dispise violence, but we are talking about the ability to portray mature subjects -- which includes uncomfortable and distasteful subjects, like violence. No-one has suggested that we need FMV of penetration, or any such wild imaginings of your febrile mind. If it is pertinent to the story, I am all for my PC character's arm being severed whilst I can see it in 6.8 million colours. If it is pertinent to the story, and handled in an adult manner, I see no difference with my PC being raped. As long as the maturity of the audience is sufficient, then I see no problem. No, it demonstrates your utterly shallow interpretation of events. Sure you can say that the Alien in the eponymous sexology is a parasite. That is true. But you will also notice that the offspring has inherited traits of the host (for a clear example, see the Alien

Thanks, but I don't need your permission; owing to the vaguaries of fate, I was born to a non-disadvanted family in a country of means, so I am free to choose to live where-ever I wish. No, that is your narrow interpretation of the thread title. I do not accept that we are limited to referring to the future perfect tense. I am defending the status quo, and even suggesting that any topics are permissable if handled in a mature fashion, for the discourse of mature audiences. You, on the other hand, seem to be of the opinion that there are some subjects that cannot be discussed by anyone. And you continue to try to paint me as some prurient pervert who seeks salacious thrills vicariously, seemingly in an attempt to make you opinion more viable. It is what's being argued. No one here, in all these pages, has suggested that the player should be able to witness some horrific scene. Only you have. I would have such as you speak categorised as "gratuitous" and therefore inadmissable. Metaphor not a strong suit for you, then? You can take that explanation further, too. The male (in most cases) implants a parasitical life form inside the female. In fact, the battle for resources inside the females body during a pregnancy is quite informative: there is a real "cold war" between the f

Oh, no! The dilemma! Do I sacrifice brave Bothans to stop the evil Nartwak? Is that a compromise worth making? But if I leave the evil Nartwak, how many more Bothans will die? Screw it, I never liked Bothans anyway. :cool: Kill 'em all, God will know his own.

Pah, intelligent weapons are so last year. What about intelligent armour, like a helm that can sense alignment (whatever alignment is ) or a pair of boots that don't get lost ...?

15. What

I really liked the intelligent sword idea from AD&D. It was kinda implented okay in HotU, but they obviously cut out a lot of the side quest for it . Elves tend to annoy me, poncing around like royalty. Humans get an extra feat at first level, but it sucks that they can't see in the dark. So whatchagot for the 'umans?

Right, well that means the fight begins here! (Bothans dead = sunk cost. ) I'll be revving my Death Star up and pulling it out of the attic, where I've been storing it, and I'll be hunting you down. Um, where do you live again?

WAR IS PEACE FREEDOM IS SLAVERY IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

I can just imagine their review of Zork: "... I found it a bit wordy. 6/10"

Feel free to make your own parody. I very quickly realised that I know far too few words of the street lexicon to complete it. :"> I suppose it would be easier to do it in 1337 ... Then again, I'll do it later ... No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

Yes, it was particularly bad. I think it is some sort of interpretation of the Scientologists' version of Revelations, isn't it? Bueller?

Maybe Canadians just have better things to do? Then again, it's hardly likely that anyone will play any sport that doesn't involve ice in a country that encompasses the magnetic North pole. (They do play Ice Hockey well, after all.) You can't play cricket on an ice rink. :D I will be off to get some of that Peanut Paste, myself then. (Never did like the US "Jelly" idea, though: make jam, then remove all the fruit. )

You've taken your first [tentative and faltering] steps into a larger world ...

It's funny the British invent all these sports only to be throroughly vanquished and humbled by the people they taught the sports to ... "